Though we’ve been relatively speedy when it comes to approving new suggestion boards, we’re toning down the approval process. Frankly, waiting isn’t much fun, so we’re removing the wait time to begin using a new suggestion board!

Beginning today, anybody can fill out the form for a new suggestion board, and have a suggestion board up and running immediately.

The only limitation is that you won’t be able to immediately search for newly-created suggestion boards until we approve them. You’ll still be able to fully use a new suggestion board — just remember to bookmark or link to its URL!

The only reason we have this approval process is to avoid letting pesky spammers have their way with our front page. For those who would like to rely on the handy search function for finding suggestion boards, don’t worry; our approval process will be just as speedy as the prior method.

If you have any ideas to help enhance our approval policy, let us know on FeVote’s suggestion board. Thanks!

Two things are for certain at the moment:

• One, those alternative login options sure come in handy when our own registration form breaks!
• Two, there is a nameless hero among us.

Within the past hour we received an anonymous tip that our login form was missing one crucial element: the CAPTCHA! (You know… one of those hard-to-read mashups of letters and numbers in a box that present you with an opportunity to prove you’re human.)  Without the CAPTCHA appearing, the FeVote registration form ‘breaks’ and people can’t sign up for FeVote.

The glitch had been lurking since yesterday, after some upgrades to our backend. Apologies to anyone who tried to registered.

We really can’t thank that fine, upstanding citizen enough, but we’ll try. Major props to you, sir, madam, or anonymous CAPTCHA search & rescue robot! If you feel like coming forth to take a bow, please do. Seriously, thank you.

If you find any anomalies yourself, please don’t hesitate to let us know. The contact form is a cinch and, as demonstration by today’s hero, you don’t even have to bother entering your name or reply email address.

FeVote is proud to announce that we’re one of the first websites to implement Windows Live ID Web Authentication!

Users of Hotmail, MSN, Windows Live, and countless other Microsoft web-based services can now login into FeVote using their Widnows Live IDs. This lets users post, comment, and — best of all — vote on suggestions, without having to go through [yet another…] registration process.

Windows Live users aren’t the only ones with this special ability. FeVote lets Yahoo! users, AOL/AIM users, and OpenID users login too!

We’ve been eager to get our hands on and evaluate Live ID. I had the Windows Live ID blog plugged into my feed reader for probably well over a month before the announcement came in. Actually, the Live ID team made the annoucement two days before I noticed, so it took us a while to get a leg up. Speaking of getting a leg up, the word is getting out. Developers and Live users alike, rejoice!

So… that’s Microsoft, Yahoo!, AOL.

Alright, Google, it’s your turn.